First, what is an essay? It provides ample room for expression and design possibilities. No successful essay is identical to another. In this respect, an essay is free of structural rules and ready-made patterns. Essays forgo precise scientific analysis as well as to strict classification of train of thought. Rather, the essay is an associative-linking thoughts walk; Essay- show that cares the open reflection, the thought experiment of the not yet, it is clear where it will lead.
The essay also provides scope for the pleasure of formulating, for playing with language and the personal touch of style. The essay is in all-in mental substance and language design – an experiment. It is called in French “essayer”, the essay statement is thus a preliminary, and it is not final. The theme of the essay writing is daring and interesting, but no eternal truth!
In French “essai”, means attempt tasting, shorter essay in prose form a scientific article, a topical question of the spiritual life, etc. in an easily accessible, yet artistically sophisticated. The essay is witty and aesthetically satisfying form, characterized by conscious subjectivity. It is believed that the essay should provide “food for thought”.
It should to convey the essence of deep insights, to investigate and Reproduce personal experience, as simultaneously is reported accuracy of the statement in detail and the potential of the identified relationships, which does not permit generalization. The essay is therefore regarded as an open form and is characterized by the subjective formulation of the strictly scientific and factual treatise. (From: Gero von Wilpert: tangible dictionary of literature – Stuttgart 1964.)
It is differs of literary purpose shapes such as a report , as stressing subjectivity of perception and above all through the looser nature of the treatment of the topic, for an associative, often erratic reasoning, variation-like orbit of the object, calculating of possibilities of thought, as the statements are often paradoxical and fundamentally provocative – Student-Duden literature – Mannheim 1989).